A dispute over draft evasion and travel restrictions for ultra-Orthodox men has spilled into an argument about marriage matchmaking, drawing sharp criticism from Orthodox Jews in the United States. The issue, already familiar in the Haredi public, intensified in recent days after rabbis and public figures warned that men who failed to report to enlistment offices cannot leave Israel, creating what they described as a matchmaking crisis, especially in Hasidic communities with close ties abroad.
The controversy was fueled by a Ynet-style report on the Haredi site Kikar HaShabbat, headlined as a “silent decree” that turned the military draft law into an unprecedented matchmaking crisis in the Hasidic world. Rabbi Shlomo Weiss, spokesman for the Vizhnitz Center Hasidic group, said international matchmaking is common among large Hasidic communities, including in Boro Park, Williamsburg, London, Antwerp and Montreal. He said young married men living abroad also fear traveling to Israel because, if they land at Ben Gurion Airport, they could be arrested as draft deserters. He added that yeshiva students and married men worry about arrest during the short vacation period known as bein hazmanim.
The report quickly spread beyond Israel after the American Haredi outlet VinNews excerpted it. Many commenters blasted the focus on matchmaking during wartime, pointing to soldiers killed in Gaza and Lebanon and reservists who have spent months away from their families. One wrote that families he knows will never marry off sons who died in Gaza and Lebanon. Another asked why the matchmaking problem should matter when thousands of religious soldiers are busy defending Jewish lives, including from those who, he said, appeared ungrateful in the article.
Other commenters urged religious leaders to confront the realities faced by Haredi soldiers. One cited soldiers in the Hashmonaim brigade who keep three daily prayers, study Torah and serve without women around, and said rabbis should visit them instead of relying on rumors. Similar anger appeared on Yeshiva World News, where one commenter mocked the comparison to Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s request for Yavne and its sages, saying he did not ask for subsidies, daycare payments or army exemptions. Another said the article showed complete detachment from the war, noting that fathers are on their fourth round of reserve duty while unmarried men worry about travel to weddings.
